Exclusive: Council 'doesn't know if its fleet of vehicles are roadsafe and legal'

And will new fire chief be able to douse the flames at WMFS?

Good morning everyone, I hope you’re in good health and temper. I’ve tried so hard this week to carry with me the calm I found on beautiful Orkney during a wonderful week away last week, but it didn’t take long for the first cancelled train and the first distressing phone call from someone living in avoidably awful conditions to get me stirred right back up again.

I’ve made myself rewatch this short video frequently as an antidote. It was shot from the pier of the friends’ home I stayed in during my visit to Stromness. Embrace the noise of silence.

janerockhouse

A post shared by @janerockhouse

I spent some time away trying to decide where to devote my energies social media-wise. Now that Twitter has become more of a toxic cesspit than ever, I’m trying out Threads and Bluesky (find me using janerockhouse) and have vowed to try harder on Insta, see above, and TikTok. I’m still in mourning though. I know I ought to bin off Twitter because - well, Elon Musk, racism and the platform’s utter failure to address trolls and hate comments - but I’ve had so many lovely and uplifting encounters over the years that I’m finding it hard to let go. If you’re hanging on, give me a shout there too.

Today’s newsletter focusses on another example, sadly among many, of incompetence inside Birmingham City Council. While I was off looking for killer whales in the North Sea, a council scrutiny committee was hearing for the first time that there is no plausible and reliable record of the 1,700 or so authority-owned, leased or hire vehicles that council staff are driving around in - nor whether they are all taxed, insured, or roadworthy. They also discovered that at least 300 of the council’s own fleet of cars and vans is not Clean Air Zone compliant.

Gobsmacked is how one councillor described it. Indeed. Read on for the full story.

Meanwhile, you have got to feel for the press officers over at beleagured West Midlands Fire Service. No sooner had they pushed out an announcement that they had a new permanent fire chief (Ben Brook, Warwickshire’s incumbent CFO) than they were being told to put together a new statement - because he had withdrawn his acceptance.

Simon Tuhill, on his way to lead West Midlands Fire Service

Two days later, they’ve tried again. Fingers crossed that Northamptonshire’s current deputy fire chief Simon Tuhill, unveiled yesterday as the new WMFS boss, doesn’t also get the heebie-jeebies. The announcement also puts paid to any lingering hope that former interim CEO Oliver Lee seemed to still be entertaining that the service might wish to lure him back. His most recent LinkedIn post suggests he still thought there was a chance that the Fire Authority board he has so fiercely criticised might yet be minded to consider him for the top job. That now looks to be up in smoke…but let’s see what next week brings!

If you want to remind yourself of the chaos that’s engulfed the West Midlands Fire Service this past year, check out my long read from last month here: Hero to Zero? How Oliver Lee lit up West Midlands Fire Service but was undone.

Finally, a heads-up to subscribers to look out for a special exclusive long read starring me and city council commissioner Max Caller, who gave me a generous chunk of his time recently to discuss the council finances, equal pay, Oracle, what he really thinks of local politicians, his own future, and whether his reputation as the ‘hard man’ of local government is fact or fiction. If you’re not already among the one-in-five subscribers of this newsletter who support my work with cold hard cash, do consider it!

What to expect from me next week

As you know, I write this blog alongside my daily work as politics and people editor at BirminghamLive and Birmingham Post & Mail. There’s inevitably some overlap, but this is a standalone blog, with exclusive content. However, I’ll occasionally flag up work I’m doing that will appear ‘over there’ too, just in case you want a more regular hit of what me and colleagues are up to. Top tip: search ‘jane haynes’ and ‘birmingham live’ to get straight to my archive of content; do the same to search any journalist whose content you enjoy reading.

This coming week I’ll be starting to share some heartbreaking stories of neglect from the city’s homeless communities. I’ve also visited a city tower block in a dire state of repair, where residents are struggling to cope - look out for that; and will be bringing you a story that exposes the acrimony, lies and awful behaviour that goes on behind closed doors in one organisation. Look out for those.

I’ve also just co-launched the new #Brumwish 2024 campaign. This started five years ago after I met a group of delightful kids in a B&B in Birmingham who had no hope of festive gifts until I gave them a shout-out on Twitter. The BirminghamLive office was innundated with gifts, toys, bedding, clothes and more as a result. Since then we have teamed up annually with the gang behind Toys4Birmingham to get thousands of gifts into the hands of really vulnerable kids across the city this December. I know you will want to help, so here’s a link to a story all about it and what you need to do.

It’s a little reminder that behind all the ‘clickbait’ chatter that some want you to focus on, your local news organisation does a lot of brilliant, positive work, amazing journalism and serves the public interest every day and in so many ways. I work with lovely and dedicated journalists every day just as committed to our core purpose as I am. There’s a lot of fake news out there about what we do - if you’ve got any questions, please feel free to ask me direct!

Followers of Birmingham City Council affairs should look out for reports from next Friday afternoon’s finance scrutiny committee meeting, when councillors will get the chance to quiz officers and political leaders about progress on meeting savings demands and setting next year’s budget.

Ward forums are also taking place most days next week - check out if yours is one of them. They are a way to put your local councillor on the spot, find out about how you can contribute to raising up your neighbourhood, and flag your concerns. I’m a big fan of grassroots local democracy and these are a good place to start. They are in Stirchley (Monday, 730pm, Stirchley Baths) Harborne (Tuesday, 730pm, Harborne Pool and Leisure Centre), Newtown (Tuesday, 730pm, Wallace Lawler Centre), Kings Norton North (Wednesday, 630pm, Oddingley Hall), Moseley (Wednesday, 7pm, Moseley Exchange), and Holyhead (Thursday, 6pm, Oaklands young people’s centre).

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“Gobsmacked, confused, shocked” - how councillors reacted to incredulous admission on vehicles

Gobsmacked Birmingham councillors have voiced their incredulity after city council officials admitted that scores of its vehicles might not be roadsafe, taxed or insured. Separately, at least 300 council-owned or leased vehicles do not comply with the council's own pollution busting Clean Air Zone restrictions.

The disclosures came as a scrutiny committee was discussing hopes that a new integrated transport unit being created at the council would help save over £800k this year, and more in future.

Councillors of all parties were left 'in shock' over what they heard next. Cllr Richard Parkin (Cons, Sutton Reddicap) described it as 'astonishing'. He later said it was “jaw dropping stuff” adding: “Just when you’ve think you’ve heard it all, along comes this latest bombshell. It is quite frankly shocking to hear that this Labour administration has long since lost control over the management of its own fleet.”

In the hot seat at the meeting was transport expert Chris Douglas, who has been brought in to help the authority work out how to save costs on overseeing and running its fleets of vehicles.

After two months of working alongside council colleagues on the savings plan, Douglas’s discoveries are frankly mind-blowingly bad. Turns out there is no central, reliable record kept in the council that provides a full list of council vehicles on the road, their ownership status, and whether they are taxed, insured, inspected and maintained.

That means that the council cannot say with 'confidence or reliability' that the vehicles used in its general work, including housing, pest control, adult social care and other services, are all legally compliant, roadsafe or accounted for.

He explained how the council has three categories of vehicles. The large fleet of waste and street cleaning vehicles, including bin lorries, was looked after separately. So too were the vehicles involved in transporting children and young people.

At the heart of the concerns were the remaining, estimated 1,700 vehicles, used in other services across the council. Addressing the council's sustainability and transport scrutiny committee (Thursday Nov 7), Mr Douglas said it was thought the council had 'at least' 1,750 vehicles in general use but the exact number was uncertain.

In his opening remarks on the issue, Cllr Rob Pocock, Labour cabinet member overseeing the council's transformation agenda, said the uncertainty was a 'perfect example' of the challenges facing the council, which is currently in special measures and overseen by commissioners. Across the council there are different insurance and taxing arrangements, different ways of dealing with maintenance. It is highly fragmented...inefficient and a very poor way a council this size should be running its fleet."

A 'vehicle amnesty' day is now taking place next Monday (18th) when all council staff in all directorates are told to log details of every vehicle used by or accessible to them or their team, to help create a new master database. "That should give us a live snapshot, and a much more informed and accurate baseline," said Mr Douglas.